With the advent of the Internet, a seemingly limitless variety of content has become available to users. Countless websites provide information about countless subjects and sell a myriad of products to end users. The amount of information and consumer items accessible to a user appears to be limited only by the user's download speed, time, pocket book, and imagination. While the freedom to publish content and reach users over the Internet has brought forth an unprecedented amount of content, the wide variety of such content has a correspondingly wide range of quality and reliability. While many websites provide reliable information or sell quality products at competitive prices, many others provide inaccurate information, intentionally defraud users, or sell illegal wares.
In addition to harming users, disreputable content providers can also harm otherwise innocent referring websites by association. For instance, if one website refers a user to a disreputable site that harms the user, the bad experience may degrade the user's trust in the otherwise innocent referring site. Unfortunately, it is practicably impossible to monitor the quality of such linked sites, especially for search engines that link to a large number of websites (e.g., by publishing keyword-triggered advertisements that link to one of many advertiser websites).
It is also difficult or impossible for users to discern between websites and advertisements from legitimate business operations with proven track records and those from fly-by-night operations that intend to acquire users' credit card numbers for nefarious purposes. Competent graphic artists can make a reputable-looking document, and there are few third-party resources to tell users the difference. The sheer number of websites on the Internet make it difficult for any independent reviewing entity to evaluate even a fraction of the existing websites, and the cost of labor for such an undertaking would be similarly prohibitive. Some rating entities such as Consumer Reports provide independent ratings of companies that advertise on the Internet, but their ratings barely cover a fraction of Internet sellers. While ratings of many content providers exist somewhere in cyberspace, their lack of centralization can make them difficult to find, and the reliability of each disparate rating entity can only be verified by yet another appeal to another independent rating entity.
Other rating websites such as www.resellerratings.com provide user ratings about a variety of etailers. However, user ratings exist only for those sites that happen to be rated by one or more users, and the quality of the ratings are only as truthful and reliable as the anonymous users who post them. Another danger with most user ratings is that disreputable sites can boost their ratings by providing falsely positive ratings as a fake user.
These and other drawbacks exist with current systems and methods.